Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book

By Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

Chicago Review Press (ISBN: 1556525060)
On sale September 2003

In the annals of comic-book history, there are as many views of Stan Lee as there are comic-book fans. Some see Lee as an important dialogue writer, perhaps the most crucial figure in the development of mainstream comics. Others see a skilled editor and production man. But he's also renowned as a credit hog and a relentless self-promoter, a man responsible for dragging comic books over the mass-media cliff and obscuring the true artistic legacies of many of the men with whom he worked.

So what should we believe about Stan Lee?

Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book, a new book by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, aims to set the record straight.

This new volume from Chicago Review Press charts the remarkable rise of Stanley Martin Lieber. We see his beginnings as a 17-year-old gofer at Timely Comics, his management of a volume-heavy comic-book publisher in the post-war flush period, his reaction to a series of Senate hearings that threatened his Long Island commuter lifestyle, his 1960s triumph resuscitating Marvel Comics and finally overtaking DC, and his later emergence as a pop-culture icon and wannabe show-business mogul.

Along the way, the book tackles all the tough topics: creative credit on the early Marvel titles, Lee's relationships with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and artists in general, the fiasco that was Stan Lee Media, and The Man's persistent attempts to elevate himself above the lowly world of comics without ever really being able to let it go.

Written in a lively, engaging style that will appeal to general audiences and hardcore fans alike, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book is a seamless narrative based on interviews with those close to Lee -- and with Lee himself. The authors also consulted with experts and archivists in order to place comics in the context of both business and literature. A thorough examination of office documents and letters on file with the Stan Lee Archives in Laramie, Wyoming, yielded surprising facts and undiscovered treasures.

Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book is a cracking yarn about a seminal 20th-Century cultural icon and the real reasons he'll linger on in memory long after many of his peers have been forgotten.

   Read the Prologue
   Read an excerpt from Chapter 17 at TCJ.com
   Ordering Information